SPRING 2026 CL LI 501:
HISTORICAL GRAMMAR OF GREEK AND LATIN*
TTh 2:30-4:20
Olga Levaniouk olevan@uw.edu
Office: Denny M262B, (206) 543-2266
Office hours: TBD
Most of us will have to teach Greek and/or Latin at some point in our lives, if we have not already. Suppose you have an inquisitive undergraduate who wonders why Latin does not have an aorist, or why mi-verbs in Greek are such a bother. What do you say? The goals of this course are two. The first, short-range, goal is to provide you with the basic facts of the (pre)history of the two languages, which would allow you to answer the questions above and otherwise make your job as a teacher of these languages clearer and more interesting. The second, long-range, goal is to open a door into the exciting word of historical linguistics. You will not become a historical linguist by taking this class, but you’ll have a starting point from which to go further and explore. At the end of the quarter, you should be able to read a linguistics article on Greek, or Latin, or Indo-European poetics or myth, and be able to understand it and have some tools for assessing its merits.
To get there, we’ll start by acquiring a basic picture of what we know about Indo-European, the common ancestor of Greek and Latin, and then trace a trajectory from that common ancestor to the two languages we teach and learn. This is a big-picture course: we will focus on the most salient phonetic, morphological and semantic developments, the famous examples, the rules you get the most "mileage" out of. As always, the history of language is also a cultural history, so we will keep an eye on the cultural aspects of our subject. My hope is that you’ll leave this course with some understanding of the exciting work that is being done in Indo-European studies, its importance for the study of Greek and Latin literature as well as language, and some essential methodological principles that will serve you well in any future research, linguistic or otherwise.
Required book: Fortson, B. 2009. Indo-European Language and Culture. An Introduction. Blackwell. Other readings will be provided.
*Note: the official title of this course, “Greek and Latin Comparative Phonology” is, well, inherited and no longer adequately represents the content of the course. We will certainly talk about phonology, but it is only one of the many parts of this adventure. It’s surprisingly difficult to change the catalogue descriptions of courses.
Disability Resources:
If you have not yet established services through DRS, but have a temporary health condition or permanent disability that requires accommodations (conditions include but not limited to; mental health, attention-related, learning, vision, hearing, physical or health impacts), you are welcome to contact DRS at 206-543-8924 or uwdrs@uw.edu or uw.edu. DRS offers resources and coordinates reasonable accommodations for students with disabilities and/or temporary health conditions. Reasonable accommodations are established through an interactive process between you, your instructor(s) and DRS. It is the policy and practice of the University of Washington to create inclusive and accessible learning environments consistent with federal and state law.
Religious accommodations
“Washington state law requires that UW develop a policy for accommodation of student absences or significant hardship due to reasons of faith or conscience, or for organized religious activities. The UW’s policy, including more information about how to request an accommodation, is available at Religious Accommodations Policy (https://registrar.washington.edu/staffandfaculty/religious-accommodations-policy/)Links to an external site.. Accommodations must be requested within the first two weeks of this course using the Religious Accommodations Request form (https://registrar.washington.edu/students/religious-accommodations-request/)Links to an external site..”
OL's Land Acknowledgment:
I am a white person of Jewish, Ukranian, Russian, Belorussian, and Polish descent, and I am teaching this course on the Seattle campus of The University of Washington, which occupies the traditional lands of the Coast Salish Peoples, the lands which touch the shared waters of all tribes and bands within the Duwamish, Puyallup, Suquamish, Tulalip, and Muckleshoot nations, whose ancestors have dwelt here since time immemorial and who live here today.
You can learn more about the history and culture of the Duwamish people from the resources at duwamishtribe.org. (Links to an external site.) Links to an external site.Real Rent Duwamish (Links to an external site.) Links to an external site. offers a collection of resources to learn more about the practices of Land Acknowledgement here (Links to an external site.) Links to an external site..
If you have comments about this Land Acknowledgement, please let me know: olevan@uw.edu